


draw the line for when it's better days

by hint2bee



Series: stay right here, right next to my side [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, archery lessons as a metaphor for making out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hint2bee/pseuds/hint2bee
Summary: Sam has seen hell.





	draw the line for when it's better days

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "BLEACH" by BROCKHAMPTON (it's a theme who knew).
> 
> OKAY so this one does have major spoilers!!! I finally watched Infinity War so we're probably just gonna write a shit ton of fanfic to fix the hole in my heart. Whenever I finish this one I'm probably gonna do a Bruce/Thor one next, and then a Peter Parker centric one because anna (@kurtvile on tumblr) can't stop bitching about how bagged she is at his death.

Sam has seen hell.

It is not fire, like the preachers who warned him of the dangers of homosexuality said.

There is no devil, not _in_ hell.

No, there is only darkness. Silence.

He remembers, for the first few minutes, or hours, or however long he was actually there, he screamed. He screamed for Steve first, screamed for Bucky, who he saw vanish with him. He screamed for T’Challa, his friend, he screamed for his parents, desperately, hoping for them to help him, someway, somehow.

He didn’t scream for Clint. He didn’t think to.

He and Clint had never been close, they were friends, sure, but nothing to the extent that Clint was friends with Natasha. Natasha, the woman whom he took a government down with. The woman who betrayed him. Betrayed Clint.

* * *

 

When he wakes up, it’s day break in Wakanda, and there’s a girl, still screaming, next to him.

He scrambles to her, to hold her tightly. His muscles feel like mush, and he can barely hold himself up, much less hold this panicking girl, who latches on to his touch, her screams dissolving into sobs.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, we’re okay,” he whispers. He turns slightly, and makes eye contact with Bucky fucking Barnes, who sits, just a few feet away.

“I saw you die, you know that, right?” Sam asks, his voice hoarse. Bucky huffs laughter, but Sam sees the stress, the fading terror in his eyes.

“I saw you die, too,” Bucky whispers, backing up against a tree.

“Well. I guess we’re back now,” Sam says, and the girl falls silent, shivering in his arms.

“I guess so,” the girl whispers.

“What’s your name?” Sam asks, releasing the teenager.

“Kate Barton. Tagged along with my dad to help save the world. Guess I fucked up, huh?” she asks.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, seeing as we’re back now,” Bucky says, trying to make light out of the trauma.

“Yeah, what he said. Now, we gotta find out what day it is,” Sam says, standing and helping the girl up.

His bones ache.

* * *

 

“Steve…” Bucky whispers, and Sam sees his body melt into dust, and blow away. Sam stares at Steve, frozen, in shock, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees others, vanishing.

And as he braces himself, he fades too.

And even though it’s a dream, it feels so real.

* * *

 

Sam sits up, in a panic.

He’s not in hell, he’s not back there, he’s in the palace of Wakanda. In the room, sleeping in the same bed, just across from him, Steve and Bucky lie, back to back, touching yet not entirely.

“Fuckin’ morons,” Sam mutters, looking between the two. They’re in love, oh, of course, but would they ever admit it? No, not at all. They “sleep in the same bed for comfort”, his ass. Steve is such a shitty liar.

Sam lies back down, in the early morning dawn, and tries to close his eyes again to sleep. He tries, but all he sees is the endless darkness of the hell he was in.

So he sits up, and leaves the room.

The halls in the palace of Wakanda are spacious and plentiful, and he somehow ends up in one of the courtyard gardens. A hidden one, one he hadn’t seen before. He can hear a bubbling fountain somewhere in the courtyard, and the hibiscus bloom in soft blue shades, the sweet smells surrounding him.

_Twang thwack._

“You were off a little there. You’re tensing your arms again,” a quiet voice, masculine, says.

“I know, I know. It’s hard,” another voice, feminine, responds. Sam recognizes it as Kate.

“I know. It’ll be hard for a while. It was hard for me after Loki took my mind,” the voice says. It’s Clint.

“It’s just. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Every time I close my eyes, I can feel it, I can feel my body just… vanishing. And I try to hold on, I try to keep everything together. I feel like… because I let myself go… I let everyone else go,” Kate says.

“It’s okay, sweetie. You’re okay,” Clint says. These words cause Sam pause, and he turns the corner to see Clint and Kate hugging.

Kate Barton.

It’s Clint’s kid.

“Of course,” Sam whispers, and Clint perks up, looking at Sam.

“Sergeant Wilson. Kate couldn’t sleep. Neither could I. Interested in joining us for some archery?” Clint asks, smiling softly at Sam. It’s the first time he’s been called by his title in nearly five years.

“Call me Sam, please, and I’ll just watch. Sleeping ain’t easy after something like that,” Sam says, quietly.

“This ain’t my first bout with PTSD, Sam,” Kate quips, notching an arrow on her bow.

“Kate,” Clint chides, and Kate hisses ferally in response, almost in disgust.

“Fair enough,” Clint responds, understanding his daughter. Sam sits quietly, directly across from where the two practice firing arrows. Clint is better than her, not in any way that Sam’s untrained eye can tell, but based on Kate’s reactions after her father shoots.

“Sam, would you like a shot?” Kate asks, and Sam waves it off politely at first, until Clint asks.

“Sergeant Wilson, it really does help you release stress,” Clint says, and Sam feels a strange feeling in his gut.

“Sure. But I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” Sam explains.

“Easy enough. C’mere,” Clint says, passing Sam his bow. Sam holds the heavy thing in his hand, bracing the string against his arm as Clint grabs a more blunt arrow.

“Okay. So. You’re holding it wrong,” Clint says, looking at Sam.

“Really? I had no clue,” Sam says, sarcastically, and Kate laughs.

“I’m going inside for a drink,” she says, vanishing through the bushes.

And then Clint does something that Sam won’t call him out on for years, but something he doesn’t regret.

Clint stands directly behind Sam, and traces his fingers delicately against Sam’s arms, wrapping his calloused palms around Sam’s own hands, and gently pulling his arms up into an archer’s stance.

“Now you wanna brace your palm against the string, and you want your wrist at around a forty-five degree angle to the string,” Clint says, carefully moving the man’s hand. Sam is aware, hyper aware, of Clint’s body pressed up flush against his own, one of his feet in between Sam’s to keep them equidistant to each other, and Sam feels Clint’s head by his, he feels Clint’s breath against his neck.

“Now pull back until your palm is in front of your shoulder,” Clint guides, helping Sam pull the arrow back, carefully, until his wrist lies in front of his shoulder.

“Okay. And release.”

Sam feels something, something cooling and warming all at the same time, all over his body. And Clint uncurls his hands from around Sam’s and steps back, and Sam suddenly feels cold and unprotected as he turns to face Clint, who smiles at him proudly.

“You did good,” Clint says, and Sam turns back to the target, where the arrow has hit the second-most inner ring.

“That was mostly you,” Sam says, and Clint smirks, the first challenging expression he’s seen on his face. Clint pulls an arrow out of the quiver, which lies on the ground, and in one swift move, has shot the arrow into the dead center of the target.

“I woulda done a lot better than you, sweetheart,” Clint says, and Sam’s eyes widen, and he feels the heat flush to his cheeks.

“I can tell,” Sam mutters, smirking, softly.

“Sergeant Wilson,” a voice from behind them says, and Sam quietly curses Okoye for ruining this moment for him as he turns to face the general.

“General. What’s wrong?” Sam asks, and the bald woman raises an eyebrow.

“King T’Challa requests your presence,” she says, “both of you.”

Sam turns back to Clint.

“What for?” Clint asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Press conference. People want to know that those who survived are truly alive. King T’Challa is making a short statement and he wants you to be present,” she explains, looking between the two. Clint raises an eyebrow as Sam maintains eye contact with him, and Sam mirrors the expression.

“Fair enough,” Sam mutters, motioning for Clint to walk ahead of him as the two head inside.

* * *

 

As they’re prepped for the conference, Sam takes a moment to fully realize those who they’ve lost. It’s definitely the worst catastrophe the Avengers have ever come across, and while he wasn’t close with any of the deceased, he can’t help but feel disturbed at the empty feeling the room has.

“Hey. How’re you?” Sam asks Thor, who’s biting his lip.

“Not well. I fear my lack of sleep will only make me more ill, but I cannot bring myself to rest when my people are dead,” Thor responds, and Sam nods, trying to understand. They stand in a quiet lull for a moment, Sam desperately trying to come up with something to say to Thor, the man who has lost more than any of them could imagine, but he keeps coming up blank, until they’re interrupted by someone who honestly surprises Sam.

Bruce brushes past Sam to hand Thor a glass of water.

“C’mon, at least keep hydrated,” Bruce says, almost forcing the man to drink.

“Everything we are doing is fruitless, I–”

“You should be looking for what is left of your people, I know, I know, but consider this, you’re still mortal, and you’re still gonna die if you don’t drink water. You can’t find your people if you die before you leave the planet,” Bruce says, soothingly, “hey Sam.”

“Hey,” Sam says, almost confused at the comfort that Bruce shows around Thor. He didn’t think the two knew each other that well, but, to be fair, they did spend a little extra time around each other in space. As Thor drains the glass of water, Sam watches the two carefully. Bruce stands with his body fully facing Thor, his arms unfolded, which Sam has noted is rare for him to do. Thor has slightly relaxed his tensed arms, his left one slightly behind Bruce, and Bruce.

Bruce has one hand resting on Thor’s head, carefully combing through his short hair.

“Do you feel better?” Bruce asks, as Thor sets the glass down on a nearby table, and Thor nods quietly, wrapping his arm around Bruce’s waist as Bruce drops a kiss on his forehead.

Oh.

“Sam,” Clint says from behind the man, who turns to face him. “The king says they’re about to start broadcasting, we need to get in position.”

Sam nods silently, turning back briefly to look at Thor and Bruce, who are both standing, Thor hugging Bruce tightly.

“I mean, if we’re being honest, those two were gonna happen eventually,” Clint says.

“Really? You thought… them?” Sam asks, almost incredulous.

“Nah, I didn’t think they were gonna get together, but I mean, when you find your soulmate, it doesn’t matter what happened to them in the past, or how different you two are, you just… are,” Clint says, and Sam looks behind him, where T’Challa and M’Baku hold hands, whispering to each other quietly, and to his left, where Steve and Bucky stand way too close.

“I think I get that,” Sam says, and Clint smiles, his face flushing slightly.

* * *

 

Sam tries to talk to Clint and Kate after the press conference, but then there’s all kinds of debriefs, what they can and can’t tell the outside world, how to deal with the fact that pretty much everyone in the world is currently going through some weird PTSD, whether from vanishing or from seeing half of their loved ones vanish, and so much more bullshit, so, by the time Sam’s boarding the plane back to the US that night, he hasn’t seen Clint or Kate at all.

He’s almost surprised to see them on the plane.

“Hey dad, look, it’s him,” Kate says, elbowing her father sharply, and Clint develops an almost resigned look on his face before looking up to smile at Sam.

“Hi Sam. Care to sit with us?” Clint asks, and Sam nods, almost too eagerly.

“Where are you headed?” Clint asks as Peter Parker boards the plane, and the door closes behind him.

“Long Island. I own a townhouse there that the US government was so kind to give back to me after they made me a felon,” Sam says, “what about y’all?”

Kate laughs loudly, “we were renting our apartment so we’re technically homeless.”

“I have a friend in Hell’s Kitchen who’s offering for us to spend some time in his apartment until we find somewhere to stay,” Clint says, amending his daughter’s outburst.

“You can stay with me,” Sam says, quickly, before mentally cursing himself out. Way to be slick, champ.

“Oh yeah that’d be good!” Kate says. “I don’t like the way Matt’s apartment smells, anyways. Like liquor and sadness. And using outdated weapons,” she mumbles.

“We use bows and arrows, that’s pretty outdated,” Clint says, before turning back to Sam, “I appreciate it, but I don’t wanna intrude on you, Sam. You’ve got a lot to work through, and it takes some time being alone.”

“I’m not gonna be alone anyways, Steve and Bucky are living with me. And besides, the house is way too big for just me and those two moping idiots. I’d rather have at least one person who’s level headed. It’s cool if y’all wanna live with me for a while until you find somewhere,” Sam says, crossing his fingers for the universe to look kindly on him, for fucking once, and have Clint say yes.

“I mean. Matt’s apartment is kind of weird,” Clint mutters, sliding his eyes over slightly to look at his daughter, who smiles widely.

* * *

 

Sam and Clint end up sleeping together the first night that they’re in his apartment.

Sudden? Yes. Unexpected? Well, Sam hasn’t decided yet.

“Sorry about Natasha,” Sam says, after they’ve fallen into a moment of silence, causing Clint to raise an eyebrow, a genuinely confused look crossing his face.

“Natasha _was_ my friend. Emphasis on was. It’s sad that she’s passed, don’t get me wrong, but not because I’ve lost a friend. People change, and politics change people. Her support of the accords would’ve taken my daughter away from me. She knew that, I told her that, and she still supported it. She had her reasons, and she put herself before her friends, so I put my family before her. I couldn't lose Kate,” Clint says.

“How would they have taken her from you?” Sam asks, and Clint sighs.

“Regulation of enhanced humans. Kate isn’t necessarily enhanced, no more enhanced than me, but she’s also notoriously bad at following orders, and she's still an amateur. She would’ve gone to the Raft without a second thought, if I hadn’t ended up there first,” Clint mutters. The two men fall silent, thinking of their three days in that strange underwater place, before Steve and the Dora Milaje had found and rescued them.

“She’s a good kid. You’re a good dad,” Sam says.

“Thank you,” Clint says, and Sam kisses him gently, holding him close as they fall asleep.

* * *

 

Bucky melts in front of him, and now, Sam can see Kate, just to the left of him, scream in terror as her body shatters. Sam, in his dream, lurches forward to try and help the woman, and as he falls to the ground, his own body fades.

And this time, in his hell, he screams for Clint.

* * *

Clint's dreams aren't the same, but they also aren't entirely different.

He's not there for Kate when she shatters.

He doesn't even know that that she's gone until that evening.

He's sitting, silent, exhausted, not even realizing she's gone, at the long table in the Wakandan palace as Shuri sits at the head of the table, the interim ruler of Wakanda.

"Does. Doesn't anyone know how we fix this?" Shuri whispers, and those at the table are silent. This part is real, this part happened, Clint has to tell himself as he looks at the young girl, terrified in her position.

He's looking at Shuri, who's been crying steadily this whole evening, and it's almost like, watching her, he realizes that, in the chaos, he didn't account for his own daughter.

* * *

 

When Sam sits up, in a terror, Clint is already up, looking out of the window into Sam's backyard.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for the two of you," Clint whispers as Sam stands, and lays a hand on his shoulder.

"You did everything you could to get us back. We're back now, and yeah, we're a little worse for wear, but we're still here," Sam says, kissing Clint gently.

"You're here," Clint whispers, repeating the words as a mantra into Sam's shoulder as he holds him close.

"We're always going to be here," Sam whispers.

The first rays of the spring sun touch Sam's house, and he still can't sleep through the night, but at least he has someone to talk to when he wakes up.

* * *

 

They tell Kate they're together nearly three months later, as they're driving back from upstate New York, where Steve and Bucky now live. They've just dropped off MJ, Peter, and Shuri, who insists on spending time with the two (mostly MJ). Lucky, their dog, is in the back, sleeping next to Kate, when Clint drops the news.

This causes the girl great amusement. Her cackling wakes and frightens the dog, who wants to be a part of whatever just happened.

"Sweetie. What's wrong?" Clint asks, cautiously looking back at his child.

"I'm losing my shit because you thought I didn't  _know_? Dad, we have been living with this man for three months! You sleep in his bedroom, and I know there's only one bed in there!  _We adopted a dog together_! If you guys told me you were on some no homo bullshit I woulda lost my mind then!" she shouts, causing Sam to laugh quietly.

"She makes a valid point," Sam says, to his boyfriend.

"I know," Clint says, looking at him, lacing their fingers together.

Sam has seen hell. Sam has also seen heaven.

 


End file.
